Avowed Dev Discusses the Importance of Choice and Consequences

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home February 10, 2025 14 Views 9 Min Read
Avowed Dev Discusses the Importance of Choice and Consequences



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With critically acclaimed titles like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords, Fallout: New Vegas, and The Outer Worlds in its portfolio, developer Obsidian Entertainment has cultivated a reputation for creating deep RPGs full of meaningful choices and player freedom. Its latest game, Avowed, is now just weeks from release, and it looks set to continue this trend. The fantasy RPG sees players take on the role of an Envoy from the Aedyr Empire, sent to investigate a plague known as Dreamscourge.

Game Rant recently interviewed Avowed senior narrative designer Kate Dollarhyde to discuss the importance of player choice and consequences in the game. Giving players a wide variety of dialogue and build options that change the course of the game’s narrative is a concept that’s right at the top of Obsidian’s priority list. This commitment to player freedom is clear to see right from the start with Avowed.

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Avowed Will Feature Several Game-Changing Choices for Players to Make

For many fans, RPGs can live or die by player freedom. That said, numerous games in the genre offer only the illusion of choice by giving the player several options during conversations or key narrative moments, only for them to prove almost redundant by the time the credits roll, only slightly (or sometimes not at all) changing the game’s narrative. Titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and, to a lesser extent, Detroit: Become Human, all fall into this category, despite being solid games in their own right.

For Avowed, Obsidian was determined to continue in the same vein as the Pillars of Eternity series, which is actually set in the same universe. Both Pillars of Eternity games offer the player meaningful choices that have a real, tangible influence on the narrative. Dollarhyde explained that player choice is always at the core of Obsidian games. She said:

”Avowed carries on the tradition of choice and consequence established in the Pillars of Eternity series and the traditions established in all of Obsidian’s RPGs. Player choice is at the core of how we design our games, and it’s at the core of Avowed. If all of us at Obsidian had to choose one guiding value as game designers, it would likely be player choice.”

Some Choices in Avowed Will Have Bigger Consequences Than Others

It stands to reason that in a game as big as Avowed there will be plenty of choices to make, though some will be much more significant than others. ”Broadly, there are more intimate choices than there are larger scale ones,” Dollarhyde continued, ”But the Envoy will make countless choices across the game, and categorizing them can be a little more slippery than you’d expect!” This indicates that players can expect to make decisions ranging from seemingly subtle dialogue options with NPCs to much larger, potentially game-changing decisions. Dollarhyde explained further:

”When we were designing the main and side quests in Avowed, we tended not to think the number of choices, but about the impact, the scale of the reactivity. What does this quest change in the short term? The medium term? The long term? Does a decision made early in the quest change what the player can do at the end? Does it impact where the character who gave them the quest ends up? Does it feed into the main quest, or return in some way at the end of the game? Some choices that may appear limited or localized will turn out to have a big impact. Smaller choices compound over time, and those decisions impact the choices available to you in the end.”

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Avowed’s Party Members Will Also Play a Part in Decision-Making

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For traditional RPG fans, or Obsidian fans in general, Dollarhyde’s words will likely be music to their ears. Freedom to interact with NPCs and quests however the player prefers will likely be a major selling point for fans, particularly those who enjoy straying from the perceived ‘good’ playthrough, choosing to embrace the evil side of the game’s world. Games like Dark Souls allow players to kill important NPCs, permanently changing the world and restricting the player’s ability to acquire certain items and abilities. For many, this unorthodox mechanic is a huge draw.

Avowed‘s character companions will also play a big part in the players’ decision-making. Several party members will join the Envoy on their quest, and some will have plenty to say regarding the player’s decisions. Dollarhyde elaborated on this:

”The Envoy’s companions are all from the Living Lands, and they have deep attachments and commitments to the various settlements they hail from. So, they all have a vested interest in what the Envoy does during their time in the Living Lands. They’re invested in the Envoy’s choices. What this means practically is that they have a lot to say, both in the moment as you’re making choices and afterward, back at camp. They’re curious about why the Envoy made the decisions they did, and they want to share their point of view – some of them more confrontationally than others!”

There should be plenty of emotional weight behind some of the game’s decisions, and Pillars of Eternity was a big source of inspiration during Avowed‘s development. ”The Pillars games were our first and primary touchstones when we began designing Avowed,” Dollarhyde added, ”so we made it our mission to put the Envoy in as many difficult situations as we put the Watcher.” Whether players are familiar with the Pillars series or not, Avowed is shaping up to be one of the first must-play games of 2025.

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